


A Lady's Confession

by Britpacker



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-05
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 07:38:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1170417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britpacker/pseuds/Britpacker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People think she has no honour, but Milady does have one loyalty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Cardinal's Agent

**Author's Note:**

> OK, so I've hummed and haa-ed about posting this for a while. Written after seeing a publicity photo of the Cardinal and Milady together before the series started to air, I've decided to go ahead because Capaldi and McCoy are the most charismatic pair of villains I've seen on television in many a long year!

I was his from the very beginning; I’m proud to say it, to hear it whispered. Milady de Winter is a creature of the Cardinal’s – beware! The eyes and ears of the man who sees everything, the man who rules France from the shadow of the throne. 

The truth is, he needs no other eyes than his own. My belly tightens with anticipation as I hurry, hooded and cloaked, through the dusky evening streets toward his residence. I, who hold my secrets so close; who confesses nothing but that I choose to confess. I could not keep my secret from him!

It was just such an evening as this: the two of us alone in his apartments, his captain standing guard as I reported my latest success. His small smile was reward enough; to know I pleased my master meant more than the scatter of coins he dropped so carelessly into my hands. Just as I had always done, I sank to my knees and placed my lips on his ring.

“Something troubles you.” He withdrew his hand slowly, bringing it to rest on my crown with his long, slender fingers sliding delicately into my hair. 

“Your Eminence?” I tried to feign innocence. I of all people should have known better.

“You are nervous.” The pressure of his fingertips increased for a moment before being withdrawn and I looked up in shock, direct into his piercing grey eyes. “What are you not telling me? Your mission…”

“Successful, as I said.” Few people dare hold his gaze for long. The power of those eyes, the intelligence and charisma they hold, can break the strongest of wills. The words burned against the back of my throat like acid. No matter how I tried, they would not be kept back.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”

He raised an eyebrow, a glimmer of a smile showing through his habitually stern façade. “ _Again_ , Milady?” he murmured, and though he would have raised me I resisted, my skirts spread around me as I knelt at his feet. 

“In thought if not in deed,” I confessed. The smile deepened, cutting small lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth. 

“A small improvement, then.”

“I have held lustful thoughts of a man I dare not dream of having.”

Some people think him cold; unresponsive. They need to be bolder, to look closer. The smallest curl of a lip, the faintest arch of a brow, from Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal Richelieu, can express more than any other man’s flowered and eloquent speech. “The man exists beyond the charms of Milady de Winter?” he drawled. “Pray God he never troubles us as these Musketeers do!”

I laughed at the simple incongruity of it. “Oh, I was not rebuffed. My dreams are of a man on whom those _charms_ cannot be tried.”

He stroked his beard, giving the words as much consideration as he might my uncovering of one more clumsy intrigue against his plans. “His Majesty may be a simple soul, but he is no saint,” he mused. 

“The King!” My disdain, I admit, was not concealed as elegantly as his, bursting through my words like a torrent through a broken dam. “That is – dear God, I could never think…”

He let me babble, protesting my horror at the merest carnal thought of that dithering simpleton Louis. I knew my colour was rising, agitation making me breathless, my breasts pressing hard against the tight confine of my bodice. His eyes narrowed, his concentration on my face almost painful. “Enough,” he said, surprisingly gentle, when I could protest no more. 

“Your Eminence…” Blood scorched my cheek as he cupped my chin, lifting my head until I was forced to meet his knowing stare. 

He smiled.

Not his usual small, chill smile, the one that barely touches his mouth. This smile was warm and wide, transforming his stern expression and bringing a gleam into his eyes as he lifted the chain with its heavy gold cross from his neck and laid it reverently on the desk at his side. 

Once more he offered his hand, the bright jewel of his Episcopal ring glittering in the candlelight and I shuffled on my knees, leaning forward to lay my mouth against it. “Remove it,” he whispered.

I never imagined that glorious, gravelled voice could be so softly beguiling! Thankful to be on my knees, which would have betrayed me had I been upright I obeyed, wincing from the slight tug as the unyielding band clung lovingly to its place against his flesh. Unbidden I touched my tongue to the indent it left at the base, dragging it up to the tip.

No man’s cry of completion ever thrilled me like the soft sigh that escaped my patron’s pursed lips at that moment. Almost careless, he dropped the jewel beside the other symbol of his office, lifting me to my feet not as a Prince of the Holy Church, but as a man.

So many people forget he is that, despite the secular clothing he favours when not compelled to don the billowing scarlet robes. Even I, apparently, had overlooked the sensuality within until his lips touched mine and I felt it flame, twining with my own while our hands roved and our garments dissolved one by one. 

Never would I make that mistake again. I swore it as a sacred oath in the depths of his bed and no matter what you may be told of me I am a woman of honour: for his sake if for nothing else!


	2. A Prince of the Church

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She's been summoned again, but for business, or pleasure?

This is hardly the first time since I've been called to his palace since. The King’s business – which Almighty God knows Louis isn’t capable of managing for himself – demands much of him, and of his creatures. With a shapeless cloak over my gown, a hood pulled closely around my face, I dance through the shadows of Paris, the flutter of anticipation in my stomach spreading to possess me completely. Sometimes – most often – we are patron and agent; the most powerful man in France and the nonentity attached to his cause. I hope for no more, each time the messenger comes.

And yet – and yet sometimes since that night, when he offers that long, slender hand and my lips brush against the badge of his office, he whispers those magic words again. _Remove it_.

“Milady.” Rochefort ushers me through the side gate, his attention beyond me, scanning the shadows for assassins and spies. “Wait in his chambers. His Eminence is attending on Their Majesties, he’ll come to you directly.”

Alone in his apartments, with wine waiting and his captain assiduously enquiring of my other needs, I can’t keep my mind on business. When Rochefort leaves I slip through into his bedchamber, letting my hands linger against the covers we’ve tumbled so many times, his mouth fixed on mine, or else hot against my shoulder, breast or neck. Muffling the sounds of his pleasure when he spills within my body. 

Always so careful. Always wary. He has to be, but what would I give to hear him, even once, cry out his release without restraint!

For his sake I’m cautious too, biting his shoulder hard enough to leave a scar; a secret brand against that soft pale skin, a mark known to no other but there, silent proof of his being mine. 

No. I am his. In body and soul, whenever and whatever he asks of me. Just thinking of his touch, assured and confident as no man of his calling’s should be, makes my blood pound and my heart race. However greedy he may be for his own satisfaction, he never neglects mine.

Many a layman could learn from that Christian charity of spirit!

Caught up in memories I don’t hear his light step on the stair; only when the door creaks do I scuttle back to his study with my eyes down and my hood pulled around a face that perfectly matches his billowing robes. Swathed in scarlet, every inch the Prince of the Church, he dominates the room without trying, drawing me close with a finger’s crook. 

As I curtsy, my head bowed in a gesture of humility I’d make for no other man, he pushes back my hood and lets his fingers glide through the loose mass of my hair, kept down in anticipation of his pleasure. “I apologise for keeping you waiting, Milady. The King will not have his sermons rushed.”

Perhaps it’s the lingering images from his bedchamber in my mind but his voice sounds deeper, huskier than usual and his hand seems to linger, cupping my crown, for longer. “I am at Your Eminence’s disposal,” I murmur, and I feel myself start to smile at the double meaning of the words. He chuckles.

Such a rare, enticing sound! The fingers buried in my hair start to move in slow circling motions against my scalp, soothing and arousing at once. “You are too generous,” he purrs and the sweet, sticky feeling in my stomach begins inexorably to spread. I know that tone, smoky and smouldering with promise. Impatient, I try to clutch his hand, already tugging at the ring.

“Leave it.”

The command brooks no argument and I let him go, his other hand tangling in my curls so sharply that I’m forced to look up. He holds himself taut, and though the robes swirl around his slender frame I can feel the tension emanating from him. The King tries his tolerance to its limits; a dull, slow man placed by Divine mischief above a brilliant one. How painful his necessary subservience to Louis must be! 

I know he has a job for me; the summons was so urgent, so immediate. But carnal need vibrates in the air around us and the sinner in me stirs at the prospect he offers. To take the great Cardinal in all his ecclesiastic grandeur. To have the highest priest in France weak beneath my hands. How could I ever resist such temptation?

I run my tongue around the gold band, sliding its tip beneath the large jewel. The effect of my boldness is a small shiver that trickles down my tongue, deep into my throat. This wickedness - this ultimate sin, it stirs him too and when I lean forward, brushing my face against the richness of his robe he makes no pretence at drawing away. I can feel his need, the heat of him against my cheek and I curse the layers of cloth that come between us.

“Such language, Milady,” he coos, his nonchalance belied by the subtlest jerk of the hips. My mouth feels dry; my head spins with a sudden sacrilegious thought.

Before I can stop myself I slide my hands up, curling around his sharp hipbones. For a man of his years and duties the Cardinal is slim and finely toned. Beneath the voluminous folds of his gown I can feel lean muscles and sinews that tighten for my touch and his breathing is shallower, becoming ragged. When I push gently against him he obliges, moving to my silent command until his calves strike the frame of his chair and he subsidies into it, feet apart so I can fit between his legs.

Half-closed eyes the colour of a stormy sky follow my smallest movement as I lift the hem of his heavy robes. My stomach tingles, tight with anticipation, sensation skittering up my arms when I cast aside my cloak and despatch the last barriers between hot flesh and parched lips. When the two meet I finally hear it: that deep, guttural groan I’ve dreamed of rolling from his throat.

His knuckles show white on the chair’s oak arms and he lifts himself a little to ease the gentle slide against my tongue. So warm, so smooth, that skin! The smell of him is intoxicating and he writhes, wordlessly pleading for more, for my teeth to scrape where my tongue has stroked. When I peer up I see his lips moving silently, rapidly.

As if in prayer. 

The thought excites me beyond all reason, encouraging my endeavours and Milady de Winter is thorough in all she does. He shudders, releasing the chair’s arms in favour of my head, his fingers combing rough and urgent through the tumbling strands. A little more pressure, another moment, and I will hear the real ruler of France begging me for release.

That sound, his voice breaking in bliss, overwhelms me at his completion. I taste nothing of the flood that coats my throat; I drink of him on instinct, gripping his hips to check the wildness of his thrusts, his voice loud and raw at last in ecstasy’s grip. The pleasant heat in my centre spreads; my thighs are damp and sticky, as if I were receiving the solace I offer. 

His grip on my hair slackens. He sighs.

“Your Eminence?” The title feels glorious – evil – on my tongue. My lips must glisten with the last trace of his release and my stomach feels full, pleasantly swollen. A small smile plays at the corners of his mouth as he waves me to my feet.

Wine. He pours me a cup without asking, abstaining himself. “The Queen’s courier leaves Paris at dawn on Thursday, taking letters to her brother’s court. I want to see them.”

“The roads are dangerous,” I point out, all innocence. “Robberies, assassinations…. They’re as common as mud and beggars on the outskirts of Paris these days…”

No more is necessary. He dips his lofty head; I raise my goblet and drink deep. The practical details of this mission are no more his concern than the contents of Anne’s letters are mine. Whether the Queen’s man ends his morning dead in a ditch or merely battered and robbed is of no interest to him.

Nor to me. 

What is the woman plotting? Not my concern, perhaps, but what would I give to know? Matters of state are above me – he’d be rid of me as carelessly as I’ll rid the simpering Spanish woman of her messenger if I pried too deep – but still, I’d be a poor spy if I felt no curiosity.

He watches me in silence, his face impassive, yet I feel a trickle of cold apprehension down my spine. I’d be a dead spy if I ever presumed too much; no matter how great my usefulness or the pleasure he receives at my hand. I am a weapon in the Cardinal’s arsenal, nothing more.

As if he reads my mind he takes the glass from my hands and raises them to his lips, his smile against my knuckles growing when I shiver in response. “Then I can leave the matter in your capable hands, Milady?” he breathes.

“Yes, Your Eminence.”

He removes the cross and the ring himself tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm loving The Musketeers as a whole, but the villains are definitely my favourite part. Not sure what that says about me, but never mind! Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed.


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